In Hindustani classical music, we do not notate

music for performance purposes because a classical

music artist is by definition one who is capable of
extemporaneous raga development, and a classical
music performance, by definition, is an act of
extemporaneous raga development. We do,
however, use notation to teach and learn music, and
as an aid to memory. When you learn a new raga,
you notate a few basic melodic phrases, patterns
and simple compositions in that raga so that you can
recall them later.

In this page, I use a popularly sung composition

(socha samajha mana mita piyaravaa in Raag
Kedar) to explain three different systems of notation.
If you are not familiar with the basic concepts of
Hindustani classical music, I strongly recommend
that you read my pages on Notes, Scales, and
Rhythms before you continue reading this page.

Anyway, here I will first introduce my own system of

notation, which is based on the traditional system,
but tweaked to make it easier to write and share
digitally. In the second section, I briefly explain my
method of Western notation of Hindustani
compositions used on this site. (My Simple songs
page offers simple compositions in several ragas for
anyone interested in learning to sing or play them.
The compositions come with audio recordings and
both Indian and Western style notations.)

The last section explains the traditional system of Welcome

notation developed by Pandit Vishnu Narayan
Bhatkhande, which all students should be familiar Introduction
with, as it is used widely in music textbooks in India.
Notes
My Simple System for Romanized Digital
Scales
Notation of Hindustani Music
(raga)
Section:
The composition I have chosen for illustration is a 1/2/3/4
bandish in Raag Kedar, set to the Teentaal rhythm
cycle, sung or played at a lively (drut) tempo. Rhythms
(taal)
 (taal)
Explanations follow after the image and audio.
Ornamentation

Notation

For
Listeners

For
Learners

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songs

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My System for Romanized Digital Notation of Hindustani Compositions

Here's an audio of the above bandish.

Click to hear: socha samajha manamita piyaravaa, Raag Kedar

Rhythm Table
In Hindustani classical music, melody is notated
around the rhythm. I use tables structured around
rhythm cycle to notate the melody into. My table has
columns equal to the number of beats in the
required rhythm cycle. The composition in the above
example is set to the Teentaal rhythm cycle.
Teentaal is a 16-beat cycle, comprising four sections
of four beats each.
 Standard Teentaal - 16 beats (4/4/4/4)
dhaa dhin dhin dhaa/ dhaa dhin dhin dhaa/ dhaa tin tin taa/ taa dhin
dhin dhaa

My table, therefore, has a total of 16 columns, with

thicker lines used to divide the 16 columns into four
sections. The first two rows of my table clearly lay
out the structure of the rhythm, including beat
number (Row 1) and vocalization of the beats (Row
2).

Notating the Composition

The actual notation of the composition begins on the
third row. When notating, I simply fill in the melody
and lyrics into the appropriate columns to indicate
which syllable of lyric must be sung to which beat of
the rhythm cycle. The bandish used in this example
begins on the ninth beat of the Teentaal cycle, so I
begin my notation in column 9. All the notes in a
single box must be sung within the space of that one
beat. Each line of notation comprises two rows. The
top row (in black) gives you the lyrics, and the
bottom row (in red) gives you the melody.

I separate the refrain (1st stanza, called sthaayii)

from the second stanza (called antaraa).
Compositions in Hindustani classical music are
structured to fit nicely into the grove of the rhythm. In
addition, it is also important for a composition to
make sure that the end of each stanza falls exactly
at the point in the rhythm cycle from where the
refrain can be picked up again. So, for instance, if
the refrain (the first stanza) begins on beat 9 (as in
the example above), every stanza will end on beat 8
so that a singer can pick up the refrain again on the
next beat.

Melody Notation Symbols

I use Pundit Ravi Shankar's Notation IDs to encode
the melody. See my page on Notes to understand
this better. Or if you simply need to refresh your
memory, here you go:

Entire Keyboard Notated Using C as Keynote

Don't forget that you are free to move your octave

up or down so long as the positions of the notes
relative to each other remain the same.

Apart from the notes, there are a few other symbols

I use in my notation.

A hyphen ( - ) indicates smooth elongation of a vowel on the same

note.
A blank cell indicates a break (nothing to be sung) for the duration of
the beat(s) in question.
A colon ( : ) indicates a half-beat break in the melody. This creates a
syncopation effect.
An exclamation mark ( ! ) marks a sharp break in the melody, achieved
by forceful enunciation of the preceding syllable.
A divider line or vertical bar ( | ) marks the end of one line of lyric
(The start and end points of the rhythm and melody lines do not usually
coincide. Sometimes, their lengths are different too.)
A comma ( , ) indicates a slight natural pause, or separates syllables in
cases where one syllable ends in the same vowel that the next one
begins with.
Vowel sounds or nasals separated by periods ( a.a.a / i.i.i / n.n.n, etc.)
mark a gamak.
(A gamak requires distinct enunciation of each instance of the
vowel/nasal consonant in question).

Note that each line of melody/lyric is transcribed

only once, and no information is provided about
repetition of a line or stanza. This is because there
are no fixed rules for how many times a certain line
or stanza should be repeated. That depends on the
singer, the context, what sounds natural in that
moment and so on.

Romanized Transcription of Hindustani Lyrics

The traditional system of notation uses the
Devanagari script, which is ideal because the lyrics
of Hindustani music compositions are almost always
in a dialect of Hindi. But with the globalization and
digitization of Indian music, it is becoming more
common to romanize for the sake of convenience.

I use an intuitive and somewhat simplified system

for romanizing the lyrics. The idea is for even those
who do not know Hindi to be able to achieve a
pronunciation as close to native speakers as
possible without having to go through special
training to understand the transcription code (those
who know Hindi, of course, will have no problem
guessing the words). In the interests of keeping the
system intuitive, I have had to take a few minor
liberties with the pronunciation of the words in
transcription. Please listen to the audio recordings of
the songs for a native pronunciation of the words.

Even though the transcription code is mostly

intuitive, the following characters may merit a brief
explanation:

aa = open "a" sound (as in "car" and "b ar")

a = closed "a" sound (as in "funny" and "r un") or a schwa sound (as in
"about" or " another")
i = "i" sound (as in "bit")
u = "u" sound (as in "put")
e = used for both the sound (as in "bat" and "cat") and an elongated
"e" sound (somewhere between "bet" and "bait")
o = two kinds of "o" sounds (as in "horse" as well as "sh ow")
d = a soft "d" sound
D = a hard "d" sound
dh = an aspirated "d"
Dh = an aspirated "D"
t = a soft "t" sound
T = a hard "t" sound
th = an aspirated "t"
Th = an aspirated "T"

The lyrics of the composition, in addition to being

part of the notation table, are also written out
separately under the title line. I feel it is necessary to
provide a clear version of the lyrics separately
because the words get distorted in notation, not to
mention that the lack of spaces makes it hard to tell
where one word ends and another begins.
My System for Western Notation of Hindustani
Compositions

Here is how I notate the bandish in the above

example using the Western system. Scroll below the
image for a brief explanation.
My System for Western Notation of Hindustani Compositions

My system for Western notation of Indian music is

structured exactly like my Indian system of notation
(explained in the section above). The only difference
is that I use the Western system for notating the
melody. The title line and lyrics follow the same style
as my Indian notation system. And as with the
Indian system, the composition is divided up
structurally to separate the two stanzas. Within each
stanza, a single row is devoted to one measure. The
time signature indicates how many beats form a
single measure. Rests are inserted at the beginning
of each stanza to indicate at what beat of the rhythm
cycle that stanza begins.

The Traditional Notation System

There have been many systems of notation in

Hindustani classical music over the centuries, but a
system proposed by musicologist Vishnu Narayan
Bhatkhande (1860-1936) gained widespread
acceptance during the early 20th century, and is
commonly used to this day in music textbooks and
other situations within the Hindustani classical music
community. The Bhatkhande system uses the
Devanagari (Hindi) script for the notes and the lyrics,
and a few other simple symbols.

Below is a romanized example of the Bhatkhande

system. Explanations follow the image.
The Bhatkhande system of notation

In the above example the top line states the name of

the raga (Kedar), the type of composition (bandish),
the rhythm cycle (Teentaal), and the tempo (drut).
The sheet is divided vertically into four sections by
drawing three vertical lines to represent the four
sections of Teentaal, so that each line of lyric can be
neatly fitted into a single row. For each line of the
composition, there are three rows of notation. The
first row notates the melody, the middle row contains
the lyrics, and the last row provides rhythm markers.
Unlike in my system, where I begin notating from
column 9 to indicate that the composition begins on
Beat 9 of the Teentaal rhythm cycle, the traditional
system begins notating at the far left of the sheet,
and provides rhythm markers to tell you what beat of
the rhythm cycle pertains to which syllable of the
composition.

The traditional system assumes that students are

familiar with the basic rhythm patterns. Given the
information that the composition is in Teentaal, one
is expected to know that Teentaal comprises four
sections of four beats each, and that the first beat of
the third section of this cycle is muted. The rhythm
markers in notation, therefore, are quite minimalist.
In fact, they are "section markers" rather than
"rhythm markers." Three types of section markers
are used. A cross (x) indicates the first section. A
small circle (o) denotes a section with a muted first-
beat (in the case of Teentaal, this is Section 3). If a
section is neither the first section, nor starts with a
muted beat, it is simply denoted by the section
number.

The melody is notated using the sol-fa syllables of

the notes and a few other symbols. The sol-fa
syllables of the notes are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha
and Ni (romanized from Devanagari). Flat versions
of notes (not featured in this particular example) are
shown by an underline. A sharp is denoted by a
vertical line above the note. If a note belongs to the
octave above or below the main octave, a dot is
placed above or below the note. A hyphen indicates
that the previous note is to be elongated. When two
notes need to be sung within the space of a single
beat, they are joined underneath by a curved line.

The lyrics are written in the middle row, syllable by

syllable, to show what syllable must be sung to what
note and at which beat. A symbol resembling a large
"S" is used to indicate that a syllable must be
elongated or sustained for the beat(s) in question.

The Bhatkhande system works well for those who

notate music by hand in Devanagari, but it poses
problems for those trying write or share notations
digitally. This is one of the reasons, websites on
Hindustani music (including this site) tweak it in an
effort to adapt it to the digital medium. Which is fine,
except that there is no uniformity, as the digitization
of Indian music is still in its infancy and there is a lot
of experimentation going on. Until a new system
suited for the digital medium is perfected and
popularized, we may have no choice but to put up
with this lack of uniformity. Most websites, however,
provide at least a cursory explanation of their
notation system.

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